Push (5 page)

Reaching deep, I plumb my dwindling well of determination.

I push through the pain and uncertainty and fear.

Then I get to my feet, expecting the nausea and the headache that’s accompanied the jump before, but other than a slight pressure at the base of my skull, nothing. Guess I’m a pro now. Not exactly a thrilling thought.

Incoming.

The sound tunnels into my brain, my muscles, my bones, vibrating through every nerve in my body. I taste it, smell it. Crazy weird, the way the Committee communicates. Not every player in the game gets to hear them, just the team leaders. Lucky me.

Kendra’s the first to arrive. Her eyes are wide, blond ringlets standing out at crazy angles, arms folded across her chest like she’s trying to hold herself together. It’s a pose I recognize, one I employ often. Doesn’t really help when I try it. I wonder how it’s working for her.

“No.” She shakes her head wildly as soon as she sees me. “I can’t. I can’t. Not yet.” Her words tumble together in a rush. “Why did we get pulled again so soon? I don’t want to do this. I don’t think I can do this again. Miki—” She breaks off and just shakes her head.

What makes you think you get a choice?

That’s a Jacksonism. I keep it to myself. He got away with the whole I’m-a-cocky-asshole vibe. Looking back, I think that in a way, his attitude kept the rest of us from losing it. I doubt I’d pull it off half as well.

Kendra looks around and when she speaks again, her voice is even higher, the words tripping out faster. “Where’s everyone else? Why are we alone? Don’t tell me they didn’t make it—” She runs at me and grabs my arm. “Lien,” she whispers.

I put my hand over hers. “It’s okay. Lien’s okay. She made it. Everyone did.” Well, not
everyone
. Just everyone on our team of five. It’s a gift I’ll gladly accept, but a bittersweet one. There were too many shattered bodies that we left behind at the end of the last mission. We had no choice. But that doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

One of the people I left behind was Jackson. And that definitely isn’t right.

I swallow and look away as Kendra drops her face into her hands.

From the corner of my eye I catch flashes of movement, other teams gearing up in other clearings—mirror images of this one that I can only see if I don’t try too hard. If I turn my head to look dead-on, they disappear and all I see are the trees and grass around me.

Even though they’re in a different place or dimension or whatever, it’s sort of comforting to know they’re there. My team isn’t in this on our own.

The fact that I could see them the very first time I was pulled was one of the early clues that I was different than most of the other players in the game. Not only am I one of the oh-so-special group that can hear voices in my head, but I get to see other lobbies and other teams when the rest of my team can’t.

Kendra sniffles and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. The most I can offer is a hand on her shoulder. I don’t even have a tissue.

“Okay,” she whispers. “I can do this. It’s just so soon. I thought we’d get a break.”

“So did I.” But I’m quickly learning not to have any expectations when it comes to the game, not to think too much. The trick is to just play to survive.

I head for the boulders at the edge of the clearing, where five harnesses lie side by side on the ground. Next to them is a black box with five weapons nestled in foam, and a sword in a sheath lies flat beside that.

I pick up a harness, turn, and toss it to Kendra. She catches it, her chest moving with each shallow, panting breath. I focus on adjusting my own harness, figuring she needs a minute to get her head together. She better do it quickly. A minute might be all she has.

I cross the straps the way Jackson taught me, one resting across my chest and the other sitting low on my hips. Holding my hand over the box, I hover over each of the weapon cylinders in turn until one flies up to slap my palm. I shove it in the holster on my right side.

You want your weapon on your dominant side. You don’t want to cross reach. It’ll slow you down.

Jackson’s words of wisdom. It’s like he’s watching my back even though he isn’t here. I close my eyes, picturing his face, the too-brief flash of his ironic half smile, remembering the way it felt when he held me in the caves and told me to rest, his shoulder as my pillow.

I open my eyes and force myself to focus on this moment instead of all the moments in the past I wish I could revisit. That’s not a good direction for me to go. Not right now.

A glance at Kendra tells me she’s at least got her harness on even if she hasn’t claimed her weapon yet. Her lower lip trembles. If I reassure her, will it make things better, or worse?

I bend and grab the sword that’s lying on the ground next to the weapon box. I don’t just get a weapon cylinder like everyone else; I get a blade. Perks of leadership. I guess something needs to balance out the downside.

The soft silk wrap and the weight of the hilt are familiar in my hand from all my years of kendo, but the actual blade isn’t like any of the swords I’ve used—or seen—in the past. It isn’t a wooden
bokken
or a bamboo
shinai
like I used in practice and competition. This one is a
shinken katana
, a real sword, and while I’ve seen some gorgeous ones before, none were quite like this. The blade is black, smooth, like glass. It doesn’t bend or break, and as I found out in Detroit, it cuts through Drau like they’re made of butter.

The thought of that still makes my stomach turn even though it’s them or me.

I did a book report last year on
American Sniper.
It was written by a U.S. Navy SEAL about his tours of duty—nine, I think. I remember reading an interview with him where he said he didn’t think about his targets as people. He was killing
people
, but he couldn’t think of them that way, couldn’t wonder if they had a wife or kids or parents at home. He was there to keep his guys safe. Every enemy he shot meant they didn’t get the chance to kill one of his team.

I didn’t get it back then.

I think I get it now, though. Them or me.

The ugly irony? After everything the guy had lived through, all the dangers he’d faced, he was shot and killed on a gun range somewhere in Texas.

My breath hitches. After everything I’ve lived through now, if I die in the game, I’ll be hit and killed by a rusted-out speeding truck.

There’s some deep, philosophical message in there somewhere.

I don’t get the chance to decipher it. The Committee pushes knowledge into my head, sound and texture and scent that exist only in the neurons firing in my brain:
Incoming.

TYRONE SHOWS UP WITH JAW CLENCHED AND HANDS FISTED. He’s tall and handsome, with smooth brown skin and full lips, his dark, tightly curled hair trimmed close. His eyes—all our eyes—are blue in the game, but mine are the only ones that remain that intense shade of indigo in real life. When we aren’t in the game, Luka’s eyes are brown. I think Tyrone’s and Lien’s are, too. Not sure about Kendra. With her pale skin and fair hair, I’d guess her eyes are blue or gray.

Luka’s next. He arrives looking bewildered, then pissed, his whole body tensing as he registers that, yeah, we’re back here again. “This is bullshit,” he snarls.

“Got that right,” Tyrone says, then glances at me. “Jackson?” he asks, his expression unreadable. He and Jackson have been watching each other’s backs for two years, and their relationship’s complicated—part intense dislike, part respect, part some sort of weird guy version of affection. Tyrone’s still mourning Richelle’s death. Losing Jackson . . .

I can’t think about that.

“I believe he’s alive,” I say.

“Believe,” Tyrone repeats, then shifts his attention to Luka. “You believe that?”

“Yeah,” Luka says.

“Then I’ll believe it, too.” Tyrone walks over and stares down at me, his full lips pulled in a taut line. “You okay?”

I nod, but can’t get a single word past the lump in my throat. I glance over at Kendra. She’s standing to one side, arms wrapped tight around her stomach, shoulders hunched forward. I’m more okay than she is, anyway.

When Lien appears, Kendra runs to her with a cry and they weave their fingers together, Lien lowering her head as she whispers to Kendra. It reminds me of the first time I ever saw them, how they stood so close their shoulders touched, warding off the world by forming a wall of two. Everyone else on their original team was killed. They’re the only ones left. But they’re part of
my
team now and I mean to make certain we all stay safe.

A tremor runs through me. How did I end up responsible for four other lives?

I hear snippets of their whispered conversation.

“. . . can’t do this . . .”

“. . . then you jump in and take the . . . be okay . . .”

“. . . what if we get caught . . .”

Lien catches me watching them and her expression goes completely blank. She runs her hand through her sleek, dark hair, then shakes off the droplets of water that cling to her fingers. “I just got out of the shower.” She gestures at her yoga pants and flip-flops. “Guess I’m lucky I had time to pull on some clothes. Can you imagine if I got pulled five minutes sooner?”

Luka looks her up and down and waggles his brows. “I’d like to have seen that.”

Kendra shoots him a look I can’t read, but Lien’s glare carries a clear message.

The rest of us laugh even though it wasn’t that funny. Comic relief.

But Lien’s question gets me thinking. I
did
get pulled five minutes sooner. Why not Lien? Because the leaders get pulled first? Or because the Committee knew exactly what she was doing—exactly what each of us was doing—at any given second? Do they watch us while we sleep? While we’re in the bathroom? The possibility of that sends a shiver down my spine on prickly little centipede legs.

“Got a bad feeling about this,” Tyrone says, crossing his arms over his chest as he bends one knee so the sole of his shoe rests against the boulder. “Last mission sucked.”

“That it did,” Luka agrees.

Kendra nods and Lien huffs a short laugh. Unanimous agreement. I think that’s a first.

The last mission was one of firsts: first time any of us had worked with another team; first time there were so many Drau in one place; first time that the battle was truly a battle and not a skirmish.

My first time as leader.

The first time Jackson didn’t make it out.

It takes me a second to realize I’m clenching my fists so tight that my nails are digging into my palms.

“We come back healed in body but not in spirit. We need some downtime or we’re going to make mistakes. Deadly ones. This is too soon,” Tyrone says.

I shake off the feeling of déjà vu. Tyrone said that when we got pulled for the first time after Richelle died. He was standing by one of the boulders, his voice hoarse and raw from crying, and Jackson told us we had a job to do, that we’d do it. He didn’t need to add,
Or we’ll die.

“Doesn’t matter how soon it is,” Luka says. “Obviously they don’t care.” He sounds angry and afraid, and I have zero doubt that he’s mirroring the emotions of the whole team.

I can’t let him sink any lower. His life—all our lives—depends on focus and commitment. The pit of despair isn’t exactly the ideal place for us to be. Luka needs to get his head in the game. We all do. Being angry with the Committee isn’t going to lead to anything good.

“Maybe they don’t have the luxury of caring,” I say. “You think they get to pick when there’ll be a Drau attack? You think they’re choosing the time line of this war? I doubt they get a weekly schedule from Drau high command.”

Lien snorts. I have everyone’s attention, so I forge ahead, spinning an idea as I go, with no clue where I’m going to end up. “They have a mission that needs completing, so they pull a team to complete it. We’re that team. But we’re not alone.” I look at each of them in turn. “How many others were there in Detroit? I lost count, and I guess the actual number doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there are others gearing up right now to head out. They’re going to fight. Just like us. So the world can survive.” I pause. “I know it sounds crazy when I say it. A few groups of teenagers are all that stand against mankind’s annihilation. But crazy or not, it is what it is.”

“Not so crazy,” Kendra says softly. “My great-grandfather was eighteen when he went overseas to fight against Hitler. He was a gunner in World War Two. He used to tell us stories about what he called
the boys
. . . his platoon, or whatever. They were all young. Just like us.”

“My great-grandfather was too young to fight.” I decide not to mention that he spent part of that war interned in a War Relocation camp. His loyalty and that of his parents was brought into question because of their Japanese ancestry. War has a way of amping up paranoia and hate and prejudice.

“Miki, how do you know there are other teams?” Luka asks.

“You know it, too. You saw them in Detroit.”

“I think he means how do you know there are others gearing up right now,” Tyrone says.

“I can see them. I can see mirror-image lobbies just like ours and I can see the teams moving around in them.”

Luka’s brows shoot up. “Seriously?”

I shrug.

“Wallhacks,” Tyrone says. I lift my brows and he explains, “In Counter-Strike a wallhack lets a player see through a wall, see stuff that’s usually obscured.”

“There’s a name for this?” I ask. “A gaming term? Weird.”

Tyrone shrugs.

Luka cocks his head to the side. “Wait, I remember . . . first time you got pulled, right? You kept asking who
they
were, and I thought you meant Tyrone and Richelle. But you were asking about the other teams.”

I nod.

“Why you?” Tyrone asks, pushing off the boulder and coming to stand closer as he looks down at me.

“Genetics.” It’s as simple and as complicated as that. Jackson explained it to me the night he climbed in my bedroom window. “We all have some level of alien DNA. I get a double dose because I have a specific set of alleles.”